


Spiraling Zeroes

by Kaarterdme



Category: Supernatural, TiMER (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 17:18:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2317250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaarterdme/pseuds/Kaarterdme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TiMER au.<br/>Follows Supernatural Canon pre-series to "Lazarus Rising"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spiraling Zeroes

In hunting circles, it’s far more common to see a person will hollow eyes and zeros on their wrist that anything else.

Those with still counting TiMERs are quick to leave for better lives and ignorant partners.

Sam was all too eager for that. The second John’s back was turned he returned home with a shiny new set of numbers on his wrist. That’s when it really began. Sam’s TiMER became a ticking time bomb bring him day by day, minute by minute, second by second, further away from Dean.

The final, big fight with John wasn’t about Stanford, and it wasn’t about hunting. It was about 79 days, 14 hours, 6 minutes and 43 seconds.

 

Sam never understood why his father fought him about his TiMER so much until November 2nd, 2005, when it stopped.

 

Dean knew his way around TiMERs. And he knew his way around women. Most importantly he knew his way around women with TiMERs.

You’d wanna go for the extremes. A woman with too high a number thinks, “Fuck it. No one’s watching. Might as well have some fun.” A woman who is too close to D-day is trying to cram every last bit of freedom she can get before monogamy takes over.

The ones to avoid were the ones that hadn’t started ticking. A blank TiMER meant both despair and hope. They wanted someone they could coax into long term. They painted their future soul mate on the blank skin of his wrist.

And Dean knew to avoid them. Dean knew that the one thing TiMERs brought was pain. He saw it in the spiraling zeroes on Bobby's and his father’s wrists.

But once Sam left, living life alone and unsure seemed less comfortable than it had in the past, so Dean walked right into one of those douchey TiMER corp stores with a fake credit card, and a complete questionnaire.

 

Twenty minutes later, he can’t help but feel like this is some kind of comeuppance, as he fingers his blank TiMER.

He tries to put it out of his mind, but two months later, he finds himself in the most stable relationship he’s had since…ever. Cassie Robinson is exactly the headstrong kind of girl who wouldn’t let big business dictate her love life. Even so, some nights, lying in bed with her, caressing the the veins on her wrist he couldn’t quite squash that sliver of hope and despair.

 

That relationship ends as spectacularly as Dean thought it would, investing too much in the possibility of a life with someone based on ten numbers on a wrist, rather than compatibility.

 

After that Dean stops caring or even looking at his TiMER. He keeps it hidden under charms, talismans, and bracelets. Even Sam has learned not to mention it, and Bobby had the good sense to ignore it. Dean didn't even know if John noticed it. He barely looked at or spoke to Dean after Sam left.

 

When Dean dies in New Harmony, Indiana, it is with a blank TiMER on his wrist, but when he crawls out of his grave four months later in Pontiac, Illinois, he is surprised to find ten spiraling zeroes.


End file.
